Vengeance reborn.
Creative Staff:
Story: Thomas Snieooski
Art: Michael Sta. Maria
Colors: Omi Remalante Jr.
Letterer: Troy Peteri
What They Say:
Set 25 years after the initial series, Vampirella is Dead!? Long Live Vampirella! Humanity holds on, but barely, the playthings and slaves of a multitude of supernatural monstrosities that have made the earth their own. Mistress Nyx continues to rule the planet, her Chaos Lords reigning over the various regions of the world, but she is getting bored – There’s no one to challenge her! That is, until a small, but determined rebellion finds what could be their savior or seal their doom! This new series – and anniversary event – is not to be missed!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While I do worry about there being too many Vampirella books, the problem I run into is that each is doing its own thing and they’re all a lot of fun. And I love the character, though that only really happened earlier this decade. This new series brings in Thomas Snieooski on the writing side and tasked with working from the original material and creating a new path, which isn’t always an easy thing. He’s paired up with artist Michael Sta. Maria and he brings the book to life wonderfully with the overpowering sense of dread in the cityscapes and just the general demeanor of the people we deal with. A lot of this book doesn’t focus on Vampirella herself but rather the state of the world but it hits all the right connections.
The premise takes us to a time far beyond when the initial series wrapped up, giving us a world years and years past when Vampirella roamed the earth as a bastion of light created by the darkness. After spending her time on Earth dealing with all sorts of dark forces, the creatures of the night brought forth Nyx and she succeeded in killing Vampirella, tossing her body into the pit of sorrows after displaying it for a while. That allowed the creatures to take control of the world, reducing humanity to a small group of survivors that try and hide while a few work at resisting. For Nyx, she’s now facing her greatest foe in the form of boredom because there’s so little the world without a challenge for her.
With the framing of some of the survivors in hiding telling the story of Vampirella, we see how Magic Man works with a resistance soldier named Cobb to seek out the old Danse Macabre locations. With those places having hoarded a lot of magic items and weaponry over the years, finding something useful has been a big part of it. The search now is for one particular Book that they need as it could help turn the tide and bring Vampirella back into the fight. There are a lot of basic “givens” in this issue because you know Vampirella will be revived, Nyx will eventually face a fight that makes her feel alive, and questionable decisions by some of the survivors will be called into account. But in presenting us this world where the darkness won and turn over, it puts you in the right mood to want to see Vampirella return to the stage, take out the trash, and help humanity find its purpose again.
In Summary:
The start of this series offers up plenty of new story material for Vampirella to deal with and a chance to expand the character in some pretty fun directions. I like the basics that are put into play – even if they are a bit basic – and the artwork comes across wonderfully. I’m curious to see more of this world and Vampirella’s reactions to it but also a firming up of the various sides that exist and what has happened in the years since everything went south.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: October 16th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
